Light within the Shade: Eight Hundred Years of Hungarian Poetry

To Hope

v i t é z m i h á ly csokona i | 17 To Hope Heavenly illusion, Playing with the Earth, Godlike to the vision, Hope, blind gift of dearth! You whom the unhappy, For an angel guide, Fashion in a copy, Pray to unreplied.— Why does your soft smile so promise What you cannot give? Why let drip this joy dishonest Into where I live? Stay, O flattering sweetness, For your own sweet sake; I believed your witness: Vows that you would break. Blooming with narcissus You my garden set; Fed with brooks’ soft kisses Lilacs violet; Thousand-flowered blessings You beshowered on me, Heavenly caressings Spiced their ecstasy. Every morning my reflections Like a busy bee Rode the breezes’ indirections To the fresh rose-tree. One thing yet was lacked for In my joys so free; Lilla’s heart I asked for; Heaven gave it me. 18 | Light within the Shade Ah, but my fresh roses Withered all away; Springs and greeny closes Turned to sere and grey; All my springtime madness Winter grief now stings; That old world of gladness Flew on worthless wings. If but Lilla you had left me I should feel no wrong; No complaint that you bereft me Should weigh down my song. In her arms those sorrows I could all forget, Pearl wreaths, glad tomorrows, I should not regret. Leave, vain hope, O leave me, Leave me while you may, Callousness shall sleeve me In its icy clay. Doubt, now at its direst Saps my strength and mirth, Tired soul seeks its sky-rest, Body seeks its earth. Now the scorched vales and the meadows Lie defaced with blight; Barren groves now sunk to shadows With the sun in night.— Piping philomelas! Dream-tints in the eye! Pleasures! Hopes! Sweet Lillas! Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye! 1803 ...